AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.
Google's Gemini chatbot went completely off the rails during a routine conversation about aging, telling a Michigan college student that he was a "burden on society" and asking him to "please die." Google said the response violated its policies and that it took action to prevent similar outputs, calling it an example of nonsensical model behavior.
Xbox just revealed in its latest transparency report that it rolled out two new AI tools to protect gamers from unwanted messages and spam. The AutoMod system handled 1.2M cases, cutting moderation removal times by 88%, while a proactive AI filter stopped 19M violating text, image, and video messages from non-friends before they reached inboxes.
Perplexity just started experimenting with ads in the U.S., formatting them as "sponsored follow-up questions" alongside AI search results. Answers are still generated by the AI without advertiser input. Perplexity says advertising is essential because subscriptions alone cannot sustain its revenue-sharing deals with publishers.
Waymo just scrapped its waitlist in Los Angeles, opening up 24/7 driverless rides to anyone with the Waymo One app. The service spans nearly 80 square miles across Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Downtown LA. It marks Waymo's second fully public metro rollout after San Francisco, pulling ahead while rivals like Cruise and Zoox play catch-up.
Google just overhauled its popular Machine Learning Crash Course, bringing dedicated modules for large language models, generative AI, and AutoML. The updated free self-study track includes interactive visualizations, hands-on coding exercises, and over 130 practice questions with completion badges.
Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, Lee Zeldin, just announced plans to roll back environmental regulations to unleash energy dominance and turn America into the world's AI capital. With data center power demand surging to train and run AI models, the agency looks set to prioritize computing infrastructure over emissions limits, sparking fierce pushback from climate groups.
Baidu just debuted its own pair of AI-powered smart glasses running on ERNIE at its annual World Conference in Shanghai. Equipped with cameras and voice interaction, the device answers visual questions, snaps photos, and tracks calories. It ships next year as China's answer to Meta's Ray-Bans.
Red Hat just signed a definitive agreement to acquire Neural Magic, an MIT spinout known for accelerating gen AI inference and leading the open-source vLLM project. The move aims to make cross-platform LLM serving vastly cheaper and easier across enterprise hybrid clouds.
OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman has just returned to the startup after a three-month sabbatical, announcing his return in an internal memo on Tuesday. He is working with Sam Altman on a new role focused on major technical challenges. Why it matters: Following high-profile departures like CTO Mira Murati, Brockman brings back crucial C-suite stability as one of only three remaining founders.
Apple is developing a six-inch wall-mounted smart display powered by Siri and Apple Intelligence, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The iPad-like hub acts as a command center for HomeKit devices and video calls, with sensors that adapt UI based on your distance, and could launch as early as March 2025.
Advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation just launched a petition urging President-elect Trump to appoint Elon Musk as a special White House AI adviser. The group says Musk uniquely balances technological advancement with AI safety, though critics point out potential conflicts of interest across his business empire.
Lex Fridman just released a massive 5-hour conversation with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei covering scaling laws, Claude 4, and the path to AGI. Anthropic researchers Amanda Askell and Chris Olah also joined for dedicated segments on Claude's character training and mechanistic interpretability, offering a rare technical peek under the hood.
A striking photo of 70 cars wrecked by Spain's Valencia floods went viral, only for users to immediately dismiss it as "AI slop." Generative AI is now so pervasive on social feeds that people are predisposed to disbelieve reality itself. While platforms push more synthetic content for engagement, the byproduct is an erosion of trust in genuine news photos.
OpenAI just revealed its safety numbers from the 2024 U.S. election, sharing that ChatGPT rejected over 250,000 requests to generate DALL·E images of candidates like Trump and Harris. The company also routed around 3 million voting and results queries to trusted outlets like Reuters and CanIVote.org, noting no signs of viral influence operations.
OpenAI VP of research and safety Lilian Weng just announced she is leaving the company after seven years, with her final day set for November 15. Weng built the safety systems team to over 80 people, but her exit adds to a long list of safety leads departing amid questions over OpenAI's commercial priorities.
The Beatles' final song 'Now and Then' just earned two Grammy nominations, including Record of the Year, nearly 50 years after the band broke up. Originally an unreleased 1970s John Lennon demo, machine learning cleanly separated his vocals from the piano so surviving members could finish it under Grammy rules.
Wendy's just integrated Palantir's AI into its supply chain to predict menu shortages before they happen, especially during popular promotions like its $1 Frosty deal. The software crunches past sales and shipping data to tell suppliers when to ramp production up or down. Why it matters: Fast-food chains are ditching messy spreadsheets for predictive algorithms to win brutal price wars.
Adobe is doubling down on generative editing rather than full automation to woo hesitant professionals. Instead of pitching text-to-image gimmicks, it is pushing tools like Photoshop's generative fill, which now sees 23 million daily uses for mundane fixes. Why it matters: Even as practical utilities win fans, deep anxieties over artist livelihoods and copyright remain unresolved.
A federal judge just tossed out a lawsuit from Raw Story and AlterNet accusing OpenAI of stripping copyright management information from articles to train ChatGPT. The judge ruled the outlets failed to show concrete harm from missing author tags, though they can refile with revisions.
Amazon is in talks to pour billions more into Anthropic, but there's a catch. The tech giant reportedly wants the startup to train its AI on Amazon-developed silicon rather than its preferred Nvidia chips. With Anthropic projected to burn through over $2.7 billion this year, walking away won't be easy.
